3.85: Allexus vs Emelia
“So… We're rapidly drawing closer to the end of this arc.”
After inhaling the intoxicating scent of sweat and sex that lingered on her skin, I nuzzled my gorgeous fiancée from behind and gently kissed her neck. It took me a moment to realize she was expecting some kind of a response, so I absentmindedly hummed my approval.
“Mmhmm.”
“Allison, come on now… I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”
“I know, I know… I can't help it… you smell like a fucking sex goddess.”
She snorted and shook her head before chuckling softly.
“You're such a dork.”
“Mmhmm. You know you love it.”
She sighed dramatically and grabbed my hand that was resting on her waist and gently kissed my palm.
“Guilty as charged, my love. But seriously though… can you at least attempt to have a serious conversation with me?”
I exhaled loudly in mock irritation and shifted so that I wasn't completely pressed against Emily's backside.
“I guess I can be persuaded to forgo ravaging my future wife in lieu of furthering the story plot. What did you want to discuss, my love?”
“Oh, there will most definitely be some future-wife-ravaging in the near future. I just feel we owe it to our readers to talk about arc 3 as a whole since it is shaping up to be almost 100 chapters on its own. So much has happened in the short time after you obtained your new demon body and became the Overlord of Corruption.”
“Mmmm. True. Multiple instances of peeps becoming demons, both with my aid and without. So many new faces, new enemies, and one or two surprise plot twists. Everything tied together in fun, strange ways that almost made it seem like my dearest author had a plan instead of just making it up as she goes along. It’s been quite a journey getting to this point, Em, and despite it only being weeks, I feel like we’ve been together for years. We’ve both grown and changed so, so much in such a short amount of time, it’s crazy to think about where we might be in the future. I know this arc isn’t the end of the story, but it is the end of something. I feel like now we are getting to see who I am as a leader of a clan, not just a group of friends playing a game together. With how Allexus and I are now the same person, I feel like we will finally start seeing what I’m truly capable of.”
Emily turned towards me with a sly grin on her face.
“And you’re not the only one who finally gets to show off, my love. I’m going to rock your world in this upcoming fight, and you and I will only keep growing stronger and stronger. You may be the future Empress of Hell, my love, but don’t forget that underneath everything, you’ll always be my subby bottom bitch.”
Chills raced down my spine and a small whimper unconsciously escaped out of my mouth. I bit my lip as I felt my entire body heat up, and even after several hours of mind-blowing sex, I was absolutely raring to go again. Emily gently grabbed my chin with her hand before clasping it tightly and pulling me into a searing kiss. She pulled away the smallest bit, leaving less than an inch between her lips and mine.
“I’m going to spend the next hour or so making sure you don’t forget who’s really in charge.”
And holy fuck did she ever.
—
The explosive results of my duel against Gehenna placed an extreme amount of stress on the enchantments to the point where Hana and Areandra felt it would be prudent to redo everything to make sure it would hold up for the PvP event. With our dueling areas out of commission, Gehenna allowed Em and I to use her colosseum for our fight. With almost every member of our clan sitting in the stands behind the nigh impenetrable barrier, Emelia and I made our way across the sand-packed arena and stood facing each other, roughly 50 feet apart.
I could see her brilliant mind already hard at work piecing together how she was going to fight me. Her eyes darted from me to several places around us, before she stared at me with (please forgive the pun) cold, calculating eyes. Her thin lipped smile formed into a smirk as she saw the excited grin plastered on my face.
“What are you so happy about? You look as happy as a lesbian in a dildo factory.”
“You, Em. And me. Here… in this place. We look so badass. I’m excited to actually be challenging the person who I watched kick the shit out of a badass lightning mage. I had always intended to throw our match in the tournament, Em. But… part of me wondered how I would have fared against you. And now… with you looking like a gorgeous floating ice goddess… this is going to be fucking awesome!”
Her smile deepened and she let out a small demure laugh.
“You are adorkable as hell, Allie. But I will admit that, I too, am excited to finally be able to challenge you. To show you the power that you gave me only served to make me into someone who can actually bring down the great and mighty Allexus.”
A flash of irritation and amusement at the thought of my mate actually besting me was mixed with the pride of seeing just how deadly she had become. I inhaled deeply as I locked eyes with her, my smile dimming but never fully leaving my lips.
“Are you ready for this, Empress Consort of Eternal Winter?”
“Bring it the fuck on, bitch!”
The final word hung in the air for a fraction of a second before we both exploded into action. In one fluid motion I drew both of my blades and made a stepping motion, teleporting myself directly behind my lover. Just before I could strike, spikes of razor sharp ice erupted out of her skin and I had to put a significant amount of effort to avoid impaling myself with my forward momentum. I was caught off guard when the spikes exploded in my face, coating me in a fine layer of frost. While I was otherwise uninjured from the attack, I knew that ignoring the ice on my skin would be a quick way to lose the fight. I used Spoken Word to cast [Corrupting Fire], channeling the spell down the length of the sword and touching the blade to my chest. My body burst into brilliant red flames as the spell enveloped me like a second skin, and rapidly evaporated all traces of frost.
Before I had a chance to go on the offensive, I had to jerk my head to the side to avoid the stab of an ice sword, and use my own blade to deflect a second attack aimed at my ribs. I was forced to severely amp up my speed and go purely on the defensive in order to keep up with a sudden flurry of quick strikes from Emelia’s short blades. While I did manage to dodge or deflect the majority of Em’s lightning quick stabs and slices, she still managed to catch me twice in my left arm and once on my side just below my ribs. The wounds were shallow, barely more than deep scratches. As the blood flowed from each of them, however, I felt it start to freeze, and a cold numbing sensation started slowly spreading outwards from each of the cuts. My [Corrupted Regeneration] quickly sealed the cuts and prevented the debuffs from spreading any further, but the damage had already been done. My left arm moved just the smallest bit slower, and I felt pain in my side every time I twisted or turned. After parrying an attack aimed at my throat, I took advantage of the small opening and thrust my sword at her chest. The near lightning speed at which I moved was too fast for her to completely evade the strike, and she let out a grunt of pain as I impaled her shoulder. Instead of maintaining my grip on my sword, however, I opted to release it so I could summon some desperately needed defense.
“[Summon Arcane Heavy Armor], [Summon Arcane Spear]!”
Swirls of black and purple formed around my body and rapidly took the shape of heavy platemail and a long, wicked looking spear. I knew that wearing such armor would greatly limit my speed, but given the nature of Emelia’s “death by 1000 cuts” style of fighting, being able to tank the majority of her attacks would greatly limit the effectiveness of her close combat abilities. In one fluid motion I sheathed my other sword and thrust the point of my spear at her in order to force her out of range for using her short blades. With a gust of icy wind she floated backwards to avoid my attack entirely. As I moved in for another strike, I saw a faint smile drift across her lips.
“[Snap Freeze], [DiamondFlesh]”
An explosion of swirling ice suddenly enshrouded her form and quickly coalesced around her body, coating it in a thick layer of ice that dazzled in the light like diamonds. I was momentarily stunned by the sheer beauty of her form, as she now appeared to be a completely nude sculpture made entirely of small ice crystals. The amused smirk on her face told me she knew exactly what effect her body was having on me, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning even wider. After refocusing my attention on the battle instead of my fiancée’s sparkling body, my brain finally helped me realize something I had almost missed. Em’s use of [Power of the Spoken Word] allowed her to use that massive amount of MP she had to instacast a wide array of deadly spells. My grin was practically manic as I thought about just how deadly this fight had truly become.
I surged forward, thrusting my spear forward with one hand as I channeled a spell in the other. Emelia parried the strike with both of her swords before taking a step closer to me and jabbing her own weapon at my face. I knew the attack wasn’t close enough to hit me, so I intuited that she was using the weapon as a focus for a near point blank spell. A swell of arcane energy followed by a storm of ice shards erupting out of the tip of her weapon confirmed my theory, and I did my best to shield my face from the frozen shrapnel. The majority of my left side exploded in pain as several of the razor sharp projectiles punched through my armor and tore into my flesh. The numbing cold immediately started spreading, but I ignored it as best I could for the moment and released the spell I had been casting. I felt a sudden surge of strength radiated through me as the buff skill [General’s Prowess] took effect. It was the skill that I gained from Tesrif when I reversed the purification she had undergone, and I had yet to test it out. In exchange for locking me out of casting any spells for a full minute, both my offensive and defensive skills were boosted to an insane degree.
Once I felt the effects of my skill take hold, I quickly activated my [Stoneskin] and stomped forward, attacking with a renewed fury. My speed, strength, and resilience had been greatly enhanced, and I could tell it was taking everything she had for Em to keep me from striking her somewhere vital. With every strike of my spear, I focused on precision and laserpoint focus. I analyzed each of Emelia’s counterstrikes and ensured I never overextended or gave her any openings. As long as I could keep her on the defensive and rack up enough damage to break through her defense, I could finish her off with my [Overlord of Corruption] once I was able to cast spells again.
One thing that I haven’t told anyone, including you, dear readers, is that my World Tier spell has a major drawback. In addition to having an in-game cooldown of 24 hours after being used, after I successfully cast it, all of my unique skills I gained from my [Corrupted Touch] become significantly less effective and cost far more MP than normal. With such an obvious weakness, and also because I generally just enjoy the challenge of an all-out brawl, I have made a point of only using my World Tier spell when absolutely necessary. In addition to the downsides associated with casting it, using [Power of the Spoken Word] to forgo the very lengthy cast time makes the spell cost a staggering 85% of my total MP. While my hybrid style of combining magic with physical attacks tends to be far more effective overall, it doesn’t allow me the opportunity to really conserve my MP. Even my [Corrupted Regeneration] burns through the precious resource at a staggering rate when the fighting really kicks off. By using a skill that prevents me from casting any spells or using MP at all, not only do I gain a bit of momentum while I go on pure physical offense, but I’m also able to replenish my MP reserves almost entirely.
I kept a constant mental note on both the timer of my buff and my total MP. I relentlessly attacked over and over and over, forcing Emelia to stay mostly on defense. Although there wasn’t any blood flowing from the multiple wounds I had inflicted on her, I could definitely see that my attacks were slowly whittling away at her health. With a sudden burst of speed, the graceful ice mage leapt into the air and floated backwards. Exactly one second after both [General’s Prowess] and [Stoneskin] had worn off, I felt a ferocious storm of arcane power building up as Emelia’s eyes locked onto mine with a look of focused determination. We both spoke at the exact same time, our voices booming with unnatural intensity.
“[*Primordial Ice Age*]!”
“[*Overlord of Corruption*]!”
Em’s cunning mind had the perfectly timed the most opportune moment to use her own World Tier spell immediately after my strongest damage absorbing skill had expired. She had been waiting for me to use that skill to augment my own defense to mitigate the damage from her close combat attacks and waited with incredibly precise timing for the perfect chance to unleash a spell that would almost certainly bring the fight to a swift end. What she hadn’t counted on, however, was me using my own Corrupted to absorb the damage from her devastating attack. Ice flowed across the floor of the arena like a wave, picking up speed as it moved. Within the span of a few seconds, the majority of the arena floor had been coated in a thick layer of ice. The only area that didn’t look like a frozen wasteland was a small bubble of the arena floor that had been protected by an all-or-nothing gambit that had worked far better than I expected it to.
The crimson energy form of Jade had used a much weaker variant of her own World Tier spell as a sort of shield to prevent the ice from affecting the rest of us. The deafening sounds of a thousand mirrors shattering at once filled the air as all the ice cracked apart. The pieces began to slowly rise up into the air before what appeared to be hundreds of thousands of deadly projectiles were hurled at me all at once. The form of Tifa swelled in size, quickly expanding until she was almost 40 feet tall. Just before the devastating storm of ice spears struck, the massive swirling crimson form of Tifa’s Armor Demon huddled down and used her own body as a shield. The enormous body was swiftly shredded apart and after a few seconds it disappeared entirely; and still the projectiles came. My next layer of defense, which consisted of Scythe and Tesrif, was also rapidly reduced to nothing. My final protection was a copy of Em herself, who had created a thick barrier of ice and embedded her own form within it to strengthen it as much as possible. As the last of the deadly hail of ice spears struck, I used a single [Corrupting Fire] to blast my way out of the icy prison that had built up around me.
I sent the Corrupted form of Mellic out of the hole I had created, and shook my head and snorted in mild amusement as he was immediately impaled by dozens of ice spikes. I sent Hana’s “combat form” out next, but when she wasn’t immediately attacked I figured it was safe enough to exit. I made my way out of the hole and looked across the arena floor at my amazing demon wife. Despite panting from obvious exertion, she had a huge smile on her face.
“Damn you and those Corrupted. I thought for sure I had you, but you definitely proved to be the superior strategist.”
“Is this you giving up? Come on now babe, we were just getting started!”
She laughed joyously and shook her head softly.
“I threw my strongest spell at you, and you basically shrugged it off like it was nothing.”
“So is that a yes to you giving up?”
She gave me a wry smile and cocked her head to the side slightly.
“Well… I may have one final thing I can try. If that’s OK with you.”
“By all means, my love. Go for it. I welcome the challenge!”
She nodded her head, but it was only when I saw her smile shift to a devious smirk did I realize that something was up.
“[*Corruption’s Consort*]!”
A typhoon of ice and snow swirled around the petite ice mage, temporarily obscuring her from view. After a few seconds it began rapidly shrinking, before coalescing into two distinct feminine forms standing on either side of Emelia. Like my own Corrupted, such as the ones of Nialla and Hana, I could see that both of the figures were made up of swirling energy. Unlike mine, however, these appeared to be made of roiling snow and ice. Even with the lack of distinguishing facial features, it was easy to tell who the women who were now hanging off of my future wife were supposed to be. One of them was slightly shorter than Emelia herself, had shoulder length curly hair, horns sprouting from the top of her forehead, and a pair of wings tucked tightly against her back. Thanks to her being completely nude, I could see that she had a relatively small bust, especially when compared to Em. She was skinny, but not to the point of unhealthiness. She had curves that showed off a petite figure, without fully venturing into “voluptuous” territory. The woman standing opposite of her was everything that she wasn’t. She stood easily at six and a half feet tall, not including the backswept horns. An imposing pair of batlike wings were folded up flush against her back, and her fingers and toes ended in long claws. She had an extremely exaggerated figure, with wide hips, a nice thicc booty, and mouthwateringly perfect tear shaped breasts. The two figures were drastically different from one another, but they both shared a common theme… they were clearly me in both my true form and my Avatar of Corruption form.
“Well… Shit.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth did everyone spring into action. The Corrupted form of Nialla shifted into a smaller version of her Stormtiger form and bounded forward on all fours. Hana spread her wings wide and raised both of her axes high above her head as she started flying upwards. I took a step towards her and focused on my teleporting ability. My view dimmed and cleared as the world shifted around me and I had to quickly dodge to the side as a sword swung at my head. The ice form of my Avatar body had shifted so they were now facing me, a replica of my own sword in one hand, while the palm of the other was actively channeling a spell and directing the energy at Emelia. Her body was covered in the white flames of my [Coldfire] spell, but instead of surrounding her body like it did when I cast it on myself, she completely absorbed the spell. The damage to her icy body immediately started to heal itself, and her eyes glowed bright blue. The shorter form of my true body had knelt down and placed one hand on the ground as she channeled a spell. White chains burst from the ground and snared the form of Nialla around the neck, brutally pulling off her feet and slamming her head down onto the ground. As the Corrupted Stormtiger dissipated into nothingness, the icy version of my true body stood and wrapped an arm around Em’s waist. Magic poured off of her in waves as she began channeling the same spell like the other was doing.
I let out a long sigh as I realized that I had absolutely no way of winning this fight. Not only would I have to fight a completely revitalized ice mage… but also somehow deal with the two versions of myself as well. I lifted the sword in my hand in preparation for a death-or-glory charge, but was stopped cold by Em’s next words.
Pun absolutely intended.
“[*Primordial Ice Age*]!”
So… yeah. I most definitely lost. Badly. Looking back I could see how foolish I had been to not assume Em had some crazy ability she had held in reserve. The demonic part of me was absolutely enraged at the concept of losing. I was furious that it was primarily the element of surprise that cost me the victory. But at the same time… I was thrilled that my mate had proven herself to be a worthy match for me. The sexy ice goddess was the perfect match for the future Empress of Hell, and I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that with her at my side, we would be unstoppable.
After my body respawned and was healthy enough to move, Em and I rejoined the others, and we all returned to the castle via one of Gehenna’s portals. We had a small celebration with food and alcohol, and no small amount of public nudity. I took the opportunity to get to know several of the new clan members better as the others held a small PvP tournament of their own. After an hour or so, Emily reminded me that we had an appointment we needed to attend to outside of the game. We both did our rounds of goodbyes, gave our girlfriend some much needed affection and love, and logged out.